Believe it or not, this year’s first act from Italy.
[Video][Website]
[4.62]
Anthony Easton: Shania could have sung this in the late 90s, and it would have been a lot more fun, with a tight, sweet chorus. Dude in the video should get a haircut.
[5]
Brad Shoup: A country song with bongos! That’s not about judging a Hemingway lookalike contest! Her blissful yawp works well on the verses, but keeping that lilting, horizontal melody line for the refrain makes this one of my country hobgoblins: choruses that battle release with every note. But the production is phenomenal, with showmanship submitting to filling spaces and crafting earworms.
[6]
Alfred Soto: James sings with gusto — what else can she do with such boilerplate?
[5]
John Seroff: I swear I’m not the kind of guy who thinks all female-driven country has to sound like Taylor Swift but dude, c’mon, seriously; this is TOTALLY constructed for a Tayloralike and the blaring foghorn of a voice that accompanies it is harshing my buzz something fierce.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Jessie sings this like someone trying to crochet with a steak knife — she can brute-force something sort of like craft, but her tools are fundamentally wrong for the job. She could do with a pattern of more than two notes, too.
[3]
Michaela Drapes: Insipid, tiresome, dull. I could string together some more subjective adjectives to warn you off listening to this, but it might be worth one spin through to hear the amazing percussion bits. God bless Nashville session musicians.
[2]
Sabina Tang: Keep thinking I’d relate better if it were Taylor Swift doing it. Jessie isn’t more blonde, I’m not less country, and the melody is pretty enough either way, so it must come down to vocal delivery. A girlish vulnerability in Taylor’s more palatable to those of Mandarin pop background, probably.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: I feel like I haven’t heard a country song this sprightly, perky and eager to please since Faith Hill’s “This Kiss,” or this bubbly since Shania dropped Up! though James’ vocal is a bit heavy for the song. Girl’s got depth and power that brings to mind, um, a country Taylor Dayne, if you can believe it.
[7]